


shot through the heart, and you're to blame

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, and burnie is just plain hot, in which joel is a hot mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>darlin' you give love</i>
  <br/>
  <i>a bad name</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In which Joel Heyman doesn't notice Burnie wears glasses until he does, and then he does something about it. It's Joel, though, so what he does isn't exactly what a sane person would do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shot through the heart, and you're to blame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nbmothman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbmothman/gifts).



Joel is peripherally aware that Burnie has glasses. 

It’s not something that he generally cares about, the glasses to non-glasses ratio of anyone in his vicinity. There’s a lot more important things to think about, and trip over, and get yelled at about, and generally Joel just is very busy. The fact that Burnie sometimes wears glasses is something so low on his priorities list that it ranks slightly below banana-peanut-butter sandwiches. 

Except that suddenly it doesn’t.

~o~

“Burnie, I swear to god these fucking props-,” Joel nudges the door open with a hip and maneuvers the massive box through it carefully, doesn’t look up until he’s most of the way through the door. Then he finally catches a look at Burnie and freezes like a deer in headlights.

Burnie blinks up at him and Joel’s brain goes offline with a pathetic little fizzle. 

He’s chewing on a pen and it’s gross-looking, teeth indentations and spit on the end where it’s pressed against his mouth. The glasses are perched at the end of his nose and Burnie is looking at him over the tops of them like a librarian. A _hot_ librarian. A hot librarian with a pen pressed against his bottom lip. In glasses. 

The box of props slips through Joel’s suddenly slack fingers and hits the floor with a crash. 

“What the fuck, Joel!” Burnie yells and the moment is gone except it’s _not_ , it’s there in Joel’s brain and he is not popping a boner at work, okay, he’s _just not going to do that_. He tears his eyes away and scrambles for the box, keeping his gaze on gathering up the scattered props. He hears Burnie get up and sees his hands out of the corner of his eye, helping him put the props back in the box. 

“Seriously Joel, did you have something you needed?” Burnie grouches and Joel refuses to look at him for his own health and continuing his wonderful streak of not popping a boner at work. Except he can see it in his brain, he’s known Burnie way too long not to be able to, sees Burnie with his glasses down the end of his nose, cheeks pink with anger and eyebrows drawn together furiously and _fuck, fuck, abort mission_. 

“Nope!” Joel squeaks, voice cracking into an octave it hasn’t since puberty. He clears his throat and grabs the box desperately, crab-walking back out of the room as fast as he can. He gets out the door before Burnie follows him. 

“You left this. I don’t want your gross wig.” Burnie says grumpily and tosses the hairy lump into the box Joel’s holding. Joel glances over without meaning to and yeah, there’s Burnie in glasses and a grumpy flush and his stupid plaid shirt and just, _fuck_. 

Joel makes a pitiful noise and drops the box again. 

“I’m not helping you this time.” Burnie says after a second of staring and goes back into the office. Joel sits down on the floor in the middle of his scattered box of props and has a minor internal breakdown.

~o~

“It’s just.” Joel says into his hands. “ _Things_.”

“Things.” Matt echoes, and he usually looks at Joel with fond confusion but now it’s just confusion. Joel doesn’t blame him. He’s aware he’s not explaining himself very well but every time he tries his tongue wraps itself in knots and he has to stop and do some slow breathing exercises for the sake of his mental health. 

He scrubs his hands through his hair again and decides to try, for the sixth time, to explain to Matt what he means. He focuses all of his concentration and squints at Matt, who suddenly looks a little unnerved. 

“He’s _wearing glasses_ and it’s _not okay_.” His voice is higher than he’s a fan of, but at least he got it all out this time. 

“Uh?” Matt says, uncomprehending, and Joel wants to cry in frustration. 

“It’s just, not okay!” He says, voice cracking up an octave _again_. A tiny part of him starts to panic that maybe something is wrong with his vocal cords, that maybe he should get a doctor to take a look at him. That part is drowned out by the greater concern that Matt is now looking at him with a worryingly kind expression. 

“Is this about Ray?” Matt asks slowly. 

Joel blinks at him a few times, brain silent for once in the face of such an unexpected question.

“What _about_ Ray?” he demands, because as far as he knows Ray is perfectly fine. Is something wrong with Ray? Maybe something is. Maybe something’s wrong with Ray, and Joel’s blood pressure starts to raise at just the thought. “Is something wrong with Ray?” 

“That’s what I asked you!” Matt yells, frustration finally getting the best of him. 

“What?” Joel asks blankly. 

“What?” Matt parrots, looking frustrated and confused. Joel’s whole brain kinda has a seizure for a moment. 

When he gets the reins back he’s flailing his hands a little bit in Matt’s direction. He puts his arms down quickly and tries a disarming smile. Matt blinks at him and his expression is now completely off-balance. 

“Are you okay, Joel?” he asks gently. 

_No_ , Joel thinks grimly. 

“Fine!” Joel says brightly.

~o~

He goes looking for Ray, mostly because he likes Ray but also because there’s a little low-key buzz of panic in the back of his head that’s not going to go away until he’s sure the kid is okay. He’s in the Achievement Hunter office, of course, though it’s lunchtime and everyone else has cleared out.

“And now Joel is joining, fantastic.” Ray deadpans into his mic when Joel plops himself into the chair next to him. He thinks it’s Michael’s but doesn’t really care. Ray pauses the recording and nudges him with an elbow. “Sup, man, you’re looking more psycho than ever.” 

“Rude.” Joel grumbles and pillows his head grouchily on his arms. “I’m having a bad day.” 

“I don’t care.” Ray says sympathetically. Joel knows he doesn’t mean it though because Ray likes him, really. 

“Ray.” He says and makes his best sad face at him. Ray rolls his eyes but nudges Joel again. 

“I don’t wanna hear about it but you can stay here until Michael wants his chair back.” He says, smiling crookedly. “I gotta finish this guide so shut up.” 

Joel keeps his mouth mostly closed and only gets punched in the arm a few times before Michael comes back with Gavin in tow and kicks him out. He feels a lot better and mentally moves Ray above Matt on his secret list of people he likes.

~o~

See, the thing is that Joel _knows_ he’s got a crush on Burnie. He’s had one practically since he’d met the guy. Burnie is an attractive dude and Joel’s known him for a long time, been through some rough shit with him both on his part and on Burnie’s. It’s perfectly natural and Joel has mostly come to terms with it, has managed to live his life perfectly fine even though it’s impossible to imagine _not_ geting a little kick in the chest every time Burnie comes in looking especially nice.

Or when something Joel says makes Burnie lose his shit in that special way only Burnie can. 

Or just about every time he thinks about Burnie, actually. 

Shit.

Joel is _fucked_.

~o~

Joel deals with this revelation the way Joel deals with every single one of the major upheavals in his life: he drinks heavily and passes out on the couch of someone he knows. It’s Adam and not Burnie this time, thank god. Joel doesn’t even want to _think_ about Burnie just after he’s woken up, hair a curly mess, eyes fuzzy and smile warm and slow and _fuck_.

He buries his face in Adam’s couch pillows and groans theatrically. Adam makes sympathetic noises from the kitchen. Adam’s wife had taken one look at Joel’s pathetic, hungover face and laughed herself sick before leaving for yoga or work or something. Joel doesn’t know. He’s having a crisis, he can’t be expected to remember things like that. 

“No,” Adam agrees, and hands Joel a cup of coffee. Joel winces. 

“How much of that was, uh. Out loud?” he asks. Adam sniggers and drinks some of his coffee. 

“You’ve been muttering to yourself for ten minutes now. I stopped paying attention until you mentioned my wife.” He laughs louder at Joel’s sour expression and pats his shoulder kindly. “Drink your coffee and get out of my house.” 

Joel sighs and does as Adam says.

~o~

Burnie is wearing the fucking glasses _again_.

“Is he wearing glasses more than usual?” Joel asks Gavin desperately. Gavin jumps, squawks, and knocks over the jar of mayo he had been using to make a sandwich. 

“ _Jesus_ , Joel.” He gasps. “Warn a man when you sneak up on him.” 

Joel rolls his eyes and gestures towards Burnie. They’re in the kitchen and Burnie is twenty feet away, chatting to Barbara about something to do with Immersion or RTX or something Joel doesn’t give a shit about. Gavin squints at them hesitantly. 

“What are you on about?” he asks and Joel grunts impatiently. 

“Burnie, _obviously_.” he gestures again, more covertly because he’s not a total idiot. “Is he wearing glasses more?” 

Gavin stares at him for a long time, which has the unfortunate side-effect of making Joel even twitchier. 

“Joel, are you alright?” Gavin hazards. 

“I’m fine, just answer the question!” Joel snaps, twitching guiltily. 

“Joel,” Gavin says gently. Joel is very tired of people using that tone of voice with him. “Burnie wears glasses all the time. They’re prescription.” 

Joel has to stand and think about this for a long time. Gavin watches him for a while, then finishes his sandwich and walks away after patting him hesitantly on the arm. Joel keeps thinking, leaning against the counter and staring into space. He’s pretty sure a couple of people physically move him out of the way to get to things in the drawers but he doesn’t really care enough to protest. 

He comes to a conclusion an hour or so later. 

_Something must be done_.

~o~

He considers involving others in his crusade but that might involve explaining _why_ there needs to be a crusade in the first place and Joel is just not going to do that. He’s spending most of his energy trying not to think about it himself, much less fend off anyone else. Besides, his plan isn’t all that complicated enough to need a second person.

 _Operation: Steal Burnie’s Glasses_ isn’t a terribly complex covert op. 

It takes Joel a week mostly because it turns out that Gavin was right and Burnie apparently does wear his glasses all the time. He considers going over to Burnie’s house but discards the idea for making the culprit too obvious. He wants it to seem like Burnie just lost them somewhere so that he doesn’t get yelled at. Burnie was hot when he was a little upset but the object was to make Burnie _less_ hot, not more. 

In the meanwhile Joel avoids Burnie. 

It starts out unintentionally, because it turns out that there’s a short that Joel has to shoot for and contrary to some people’s opinions Joel did take at least that part seriously. It’s better for his concentration to isolate himself and then he notices he’s suddenly thinking much more clearly. He stops going into Burnie’s office at the slightest pretext – that was telling all on its own, Joel knows – and realizes his heart-rate is much lower now. 

He does it on purpose after that. 

That Friday he finds Burnie asleep in his office and he snags the glasses so easily he wonders why no one has ever done it before. The he remembers that no one else has the weird, gross crush that he does and acknowledges that no one else is as crazy as he is either. He's also going to deny to his dying day that he hummed the Mission: Impossible theme under his breathe while tucking the glasses into his pocket. 

He shuts the door quietly behind him because he is a _gentleman_ thief.

~o~

Burnie spends _two hours_ rampaging through the office and yelling at the walls when he discovers that he can’t find his glasses. Joel feels a little guilty but laughs anyway, very definitively doesn’t think about the glasses hidden under a stack of papers in a box under his desk. Burnie looks a little more than Joel’s comfortable with around his desk and he does punch Joel in the arm for laughing but in the end he puts in his contacts and grumps his way back to work.

Joel sighs in relief and goes back to work himself.

~o~

A few days later Burnie opens the door to Joel’s office and walks inside with purpose that puts Joel instantly on guard. Nothing good will come of Burnie having a purpose related to Joel, not in Joel’s life or in his pants.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Burnie says, and he sounds firm but also a little disappointed. It makes Joel’s chest a little warm. He leans back in his chair and doesn’t meet Burnie’s eyes. 

“Have not.” he says. He’s aware of how childish he sounds but he’s always been crap at lying and Burnie has always been able to see right through him. 

“Liar. You gotta tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, man.” Burnie says, and sits down in the chair across from Joel. Joel winces. It appears Burnie means to have a Serious Talk. 

“I haven’t been avoiding you!” Joel insists, making the effort to meet Burnie’s eyes. Even without his glasses – and Joel feels the strongest kick of guilt yet in his chest – it’s still enough to make his cheeks burn. Joel can feel the impending hangover from the alcohol he’s going to have to drink to get over this. He’s never dealt well with Burnie’s undivided attention, he always makes an ass out of himself. 

“Dude, you used to be in my office every five minutes.” Burnie says, and rolls his eyes. “Don’t think I didn’t notice.” 

Joel frowns, because he didn’t know he had been so obvious and it kinda hurt a little for Burnie to dismiss it like that too. It leaves him a little defensive. 

“Well Christ, sorry.” He snaps, crossing his arms and tucking his chin back into his hoodie. “Maybe I was trying to cut back, you don’t know that.” 

Burnie blinks at him a few times and Joel curls himself up even tighter into the fabric. Any more and he’ll be drawing his knees up to his chest like a child, which is just not on. He feels a little ridiculous, glaring at Burnie from the safety of the folds of his hoodie, but he’s also too upset to care too much. 

“You look like a turtle.” Burnie says stupidly, blinking at Joel still. He looks a little distracted and he’s flushing again. Joel narrows his eyes at him, suddenly concerned despite himself. Burnie shakes his head a few times before refocusing. He still looks fuzzy. “What was I saying?” 

“You were bitching at me for not bothering you every five minutes.” Joel reminds him sarcastically, suddenly remembering why he was upset. He pulls the hood over his head and keeps glaring and Burnie snorts despite himself. 

“I wasn’t complaining.” He says, shrugging and spreading his hands. He looks shifty all of a sudden. “I miss the interruptions, dude.” 

Joel lets his glare go long enough to squint at Burnie, assessing his honesty. It doesn’t take long, Burnie is suddenly the one having difficulty meeting his eyes. 

“You sure about that?” Joel asks flatly. 

Burnie twitches guilty and Joel’s about to start laughing even though nothing about this is funny because the whole situation is ridiculous. He’s sitting here with the stupidest, most pathetic crush and Burnie tells him he looks like a turtle, what the fuck. Joel hates his life. 

Burnie sighs and scrubs his face with his hands. 

“You’re crazy.” He tells Joel but he’s smiling and Joel smiles back uncertainly. “Visit me more, you moron. I really do miss having you around, god help me.” 

He leaves after a few seconds of meaningless banter and Joel digs the glasses out of the box under his desk and stares at them.

~o~

The guilt finally makes him leave the glasses on Burnie’s desk even though he knows it’ll destroy him later to see Burnie wearing them again. He’s had time to lose his built-up tolerance. He’s going to pop a boner in the office _again_. He’s basically resigned himself to it at this point. The only thing he can do is damage control.

It’s easier than taking them, in the end. He waits until Burnie is out shooting an Immersion or something and just lets himself in, tucks them next to the keyboard where they won’t get ignored or knocked onto the floor accidentally. He leaves quietly and returns to his office feeling like a good person and also a little bit like a cat burglar. 

He spends the rest of the day absently googling for events he could try to convince Barbara to let him attend while he works his Burnie-in-glasses tolerance back up enough to pre-theft levels.

~o~

“Okay, _seriously_ , Joel?” Burnie demands, throwing Joel’s door open. It rebounds off the far wall with a slam and Joel yelps, jumps onto his chair in a show of agility he didn’t know he was capable of. They stare at each other for a second, Burnie from the door and Joel from standing on top of his slowly swiveling chair. It’s a little awkward.

Joel registers that Burnie isn’t wearing his glasses and frowns. 

Then he sees them in Burnie’s hand and feels the blood drain from his face. 

“Ah, Burnie.” He says weakly, trying to play off his position on top of the chair. It’s hard to do because it keeps slowly turning and he has to twist to keep his eyes on Burnie. “Sup?” 

Burnie blinks himself aware and then scowls. 

“Get down before you hurt yourself.” He commands, moving like he’s going to come around the desk and get Joel down himself. Joel jumps down hastily. He doesn’t even want to _contemplate_ Burnie picking him up. 

Lie, he does, but it’s probably not a good idea to give himself a stiffy with the object of said stiffy in the same room. 

Burnie stares at him across Joel’s desk for a few moments. 

“Burnie?” Joel asks, even though he doesn’t want to. It’s probably more awkward to stare at each other for twenty plus minutes than it would be to just get yelled at for whatever Burnie is there to yell at him for. Probably. Joel isn’t exactly an expert at keeping things from being awkward. 

“Right.” Burnie says and shakes himself. He brandishes the hand with the glasses in it, which Joel had honestly almost forgotten about, in Joel’s direction. “ _Why_ did you steal my glasses? And then return them? Just-,” he flails the hand for a moment and Joel tracks it with grim fascination, “What the _fuck_ Joel?” 

“How did you know it was me?” Joel asks without thinking, which was not what he planned to say. He hadn’t planned on admitting anything. 

“You talked to Gavin _and_ Matt about glasses, Joel.” Burnie says, rolling his eyes. “I’m not an idiot.” 

“Oh.” Joel says. He thinks about that for a while. “Did you know the whole time?” 

“I thought it was you, yeah.” Burnie says in a tone of long-suffering patience. “I figured it was just one of your weird things, but then you returned them and I’m just insanely confused right now.” 

“Oh.” Joel says again. Burnie watches him for a long moment. 

“So why did you?” he prompts finally and Joel swallows. He can feel the flush building in his cheeks and, shit, he’s really just the worst at lying to Burnie. He’s going to try, and he’s going to fail, and then he’s going to be punched somehow, he just knows it. 

“I uh.” He says, and coughs because seriously, he’s the _worst_ at lying to Burnie. “I thought you looked bad in them.” 

Burnie fixes him with the most unimpressed of faces. 

“You’re lying.” He decides and crosses his arms. It was really just not fair what that did to show off his arms, Joel thinks desperately, because what he _really_ needs right now is to start thinking about how hot Burnie is in the middle of an argument, of all times. 

“Am not.” Joel says and his voice is too high-pitched. Burnie just keeps looking at him and eventually Joel looks down at his feet. 

“You looked too hot in them.” he admits, and it’s a little bit of a release and a lot of shame to say. 

He peeks up through his eyelashes and catches Burnie blinking, opening and closing his mouth like he can’t think of what he wants to say. 

“Thanks, man?” He finally chokes out, which makes Joel’s chest hurt in a way he doesn’t really want to examine. Besides, he’s got more to confess. He’s tired of the stress of keeping the secret. 

“There’s, well, there’s more. I uh. Well. I have, you know.” He runs a hand through his hair and then rubs his mouth and desperately avoids Burnie’s eyes. “I have a, a crush?” 

“A crush.” Burnie echoes dully. 

“On you.” 

Joel is going to throw up in a second, he knows it. His stomach is sick and tight and his breathing is coming too rapidly. Maybe he has a fever. He feels warm enough, and dizzy too. 

He still can’t meet Burnie’s eyes. 

“On me.” Burnie repeats, and he sounds strangled. “A big one, a small one?” 

“Not very.” Joel croaks out past the bile in his throat. 

“Not very what, Joel?” Burnie demands, and his voice is rapidly escalating into Pissed Burnie Voice. “Not very big, not very small, _what?_ ” 

“Not very small.” Joel whispers and closes his eyes, hunching into his hoodie. It’s warm in there, and safer, and maybe Burnie won’t be mad with him somehow. He’s not sure. He’s not exactly feeling rational. 

The silence stretches out and Joel wonders what that means. Eventually the curiosity gets the best of him and he slowly opens one eye. 

Burnie is staring at him, mouth open and face blank. His cheeks are a little flushed. Joel opens the other eye and stares back at him hopefully because Burnie actually doesn’t look pissed. Burnie looks like someone slapped him, maybe, but that usually didn’t lead to Joel getting punched so he’s in favor of that. 

“How long?” Burnie asks, and he sounds worse than ever. His voice is wrecked and if Joel weren’t currently on the biggest emotional rollercoaster of his life his dick would probably be taking interest in the proceedings. 

“Not that long.” Joel defends himself because a man has to have some secrets, alright? And Burnie didn’t have to know how pathetic he is. That’s for Joel and Joel’s bottle of Johnny Walker to know. 

“ _Joel._ ” Burnie says, and he looks like he’s about a second from tearing out his hair. 

“You know,” Joel mumbles into his hoodie. He’s examining his feet again, mostly to avoid the apparent voodoo Burnie has over him to make him tell the truth every time he meets Joel’s eyes. “Years. Maybe. Hypothetically.” 

There’s a beat of silence and then Burnie is exhaling explosively. 

“Thank God.” He says and then he’s striding around the desk towards Joel. 

Joel backs away as fast as he can, scrambling back until he hits the far wall. Burnie doesn’t stop, keeps coming until Joel can feel his body heat like it’s a physical force pressing him back against the wall. He doesn’t comprehend what’s going on, why Burnie is so close, what he’s doing and what Joel should be doing. 

Burnie’s fingers brushing his jaw make him gasp, surprise and sensitivity and want combining like a physical kick in the chest to force the air out of his lungs. 

Burnie’s lips are on his in the next moment and Joel’s panicked thoughts go out like a candle. 

It takes him a second to adjust, to catch the rhythm and then they’re sliding together, Burnie’s hand on his hip and his jaw, Joel’s hands finding Burnie’s hair. It’s chaste and sweet for a moment, lips moving on lips and quiet breathing. He can feel Burnie’s beard against his cheeks and he will not admit to imagining this but it’s perfect, just perfect. 

Burnie’s lips part and his tongue touches Joel’s lower lip, a slow, easy slide that leaves Joel buckling in Burnie’s grip and gasping audibly. 

“Burnie, Burnie, what-,” he asks desperately when Burnie pulls away. Burnie grins at him, lips red and expression the happiest Joel’s probably ever seen him before. 

“I like you too, dickhead.” He says, and brushes another chaste kiss to Joel’s lips. “Don’t steal my glasses again.”


End file.
